The linguistic demon of space-time

Time and space are one of the greatest conundrums of both science and philosophy, and have been so since we began to think about them self-reflectively. Many, especially in physics, see space-time as an objective thing, which can be bent and twisted. Others, namely in Eastern philosophy, see time and space as illusions, narratives in the mind without any objective existence. An intense dialectic goes on between these two apparently opposing views.

But when it comes to explaining and communicating these views, the playing field is anything but level. Those who espouse the notion that time and space are just illusory narratives face the apparently impossible challenge of articulating their position in language. After all, language already has time and space built right into it: we conjugate verbs according to tenses that reflect time; the linguistic separation between subject and object assumes the objective existence of space; grammar organizes the structure of language along the axes of time and space; and so on. Language assumes and reflects the notion of objective time and space in its very structure. So anyone trying to explain reality from outside time and space is immediately at a huge disadvantage the very moment they use language. How can they articulate their position then? How can they defend themselves coherently against the linguistic onslaught of the objectivists? How can they argue their case?

Because of this, Eastern philosophers have insisted that the only way to understand the illusory nature of time and space is through direct realization, not explanations. Explanations are linguistic and, as such, already assume time and space to begin with. As a result, our cultural narrative has been completely dominated by the notion that time and space really do exist objectively. After all, cultural narratives are the offspring of language; they fundamentally depend on our ability to communicate linguistically. Moreover, the direct realization of the illusory nature of time and space is extremely elusive. We are all immersed in a culture that denies and ridicules it. The result is a self-reinforcing ethos—a 'demon' of sorts—that imprisons the vast majority of us in the finality of objective time and the confinement of objective space. We are—or so the demon screams—limited beings lost in the vastness of the cosmos, destined to oblivion at the moment of death. We've been eaten by the demon and completely lost touch with our own inherent transcendence. It is critical to realize this: it is the demon of objective space-time that robs us of our felt sense of transcendence and creates all suffering.

The only way to fight back against the demon is to coherently talk about the nature of reality from outside time and space. But how to do this? How to use language to deny that which is built into language? How to use words and grammar to make sense of reality without tenses or distinction between subject and object? How to understand our felt sense of a personal past, as well as our inability to identify with the universe at large, simply by reading something, instead of having to attain enlightenment ourselves?

Notice that, up until my book Brief Peeks Beyond, my own work has indirectly granted validity to time and space. I've used metaphors such as swirling whirlpools in a stream, which assume space (the extension of the stream) and time (the interval along which the whirlpool can dynamically swirl). We think in terms of time and space, so my work up to that moment has simply acquiesced to this reality. My approach has been to pick my fights carefully: I've focused on debunking the contemporary notion that there is objective matter 'out there,' outside subjective experience. But in doing so I've left the beast of objective space-time untouched.

In Parts II and III of my new book More Than Allegory, however, I finally bite this bullet. There, for the first—and perhaps last—time, I attempt to coherently make sense of life and reality in a way that does not assume the objective existence of either time or space. I attempt to explain everything—the unfathomable variety and structure of existence—without extending it along the axes of time or space, but by squeezing all the patterns of existence into the singularity of the now. To do this, I introduce the key notion of what I call the 'cognitive big bang.' From the book:

The present moment is the cosmic egg described in so many religious myths, which we briefly discussed in Part I. It is a singularity that births all existence into form. It seeds our mind with fleeting consensus images that we then blow up into the voluminous bulk of projected past and future. These projections are like a cognitive ‘big bang’ unfolding in our mind. They stretch out the intangibility of the singularity into the substantiality of events in time. But unlike the theoretical Big Bang of current physics, the cognitive ‘big bang’ isn’t an isolated occurrence in a far distant past. It happens now; now; now. It only ever happens now. (pp. 102-103)

Indeed, the 'cognitive big bang' replaces space-time as an explanatory framework for the undeniable variety and structure of our experiences. It allows reality to be made sense of in language in a way that still rejects objective space-time. It carries the potential to kill—or at least fatally wound—the demon. The attempt is somewhat precarious, since language, by its very nature, constantly tries to seduce the reader into thinking in terms of space and time at every twist and turn of the text. But I believe it can nonetheless be successful, if only you read the words with attention and self-discipline. I do believe there is a way to realize the illusory nature of time and space simply by reading a coherently written piece of text, without having to achieve what in the East has been called 'enlightenment.' This has been my attempt in Parts II and III of the book. And if you succeed, you will realize that...

The past is always gone and the future never comes. There is only ever the present. Have you ever left the present in your entire life? Even if you had a time machine to visit the ‘future,’ during your visit the ‘future’ would be your present. You cannot escape the present; ever; not even theoretically.

Past and future exist only as mental explanations and predictions, images in the mind. But these images are experienced in the present. Pause and consider this. There has never been a single moment in your entire life in which the past or the future existed as anything other than images experienced in the present. Any other conclusion is simply the subjective output of an intellectual model of reality—no matter how plausible—not a mind-independent fact.

Forever locked in the now, we subjectively project a past backwards and a future forwards. ... But even those projections exist only insofar as they are experienced in the present. Past and future, at bottom, are simply particular qualities or configurations of certain present experiences: the past corresponds to the qualities of remoteness and finality, while the future corresponds to fuzziness and openness. It is our intellect that mistakes these different qualities of present experience for an objective timeline extending back and forth. Past and future are merely concepts arising from cognitive confusion. (pp. 99-100)

Existentialism places all meaning in the person, but doesn't deny the 'world out there' (which, therefore, becomes meaningless). If space doesn't exist, the 'world out there' is one with the person, and therefore everything has meaning.

I've had a few striking precognitions where I've dreamt or daydreamed something very arbitrary and specific that has unexpectedly come true a few days later. I'm convinced that we can get vague and random glimpses of the future and that therefore in some sense the future, or certain possible futures, are "real". (Not had the lottery numbers yet though!)How might that fit in with your proposition above?

Hmmm, yes but... clocks run down, carpets become worn, children grow bigger every year and the new Star Wars movie isn't on Netflix yet. Change happens continually and in many cases we have no idea what the changes will be. Processes are ongoing, and knowing what they have been and predicting what they will be is a very important aspect of our lives. I get that we are all stuck in a continual NOW, but don't understand how denying the existence of the past and the future gains us anything...I read your Meaning In Absurdity and very much enjoyed - your takedown of materialism is spectacularly good. But I have trouble embracing the Idealism you propose as a replacement - I get the theory but in practice it feels like a dizzying kind of nauseous self-referentiality. I guess I should get the new one right? :-) Ever read any Owen Barfield?

Maybe the new book can help.I don't deny variety and structure in the universe (which is what you are appealing to). But neither variety or structure requires time: a cross-linked database has structure in the way records are cross-linked, but that structure requires no space or time. Experiences have structure in the way they evoke each other, which is a structure of qualities. But that doesn't require time or space. Both time and space are created as narratives for the unfolding of that timeless qualitative structure.

Have you ever studied any languages that do not assume the same orientation toward time and space?Some aboriginal languages (if I remember correctly from long ago, (oops) I believe refer to the "Dreamtime", but I don't remember any detail. College says are just a dim memory in my present time.

Mathematics is a language that helped me see the ever-present. A formula exists as a static thing, yet when we "run" it, we get sequences and data points that were somehow hidden (condensed) within. Similarly, computer games exist as static sets of formulae which 'come to life' when executed by an observer. I have always felt that the big bang is something that is still happening. Dave Fawcett

Bernardo, are you ascribing to the B-theory of time? I'm just now struggling with these notions, having long been familiar with relativity but failing to realize B-theory was one strong implication. My intuition is strongly repelled by the notion of time being just a sequence of frozen events in spacetime, extending from past to an already determined future, due to the obvious implications for free-will. It hasn't clarified in my mind yet, but there is an intuitive notion that Idealism and Mind-at-Large can rectify this conundrum by providing an absolute time in Mind-at-Large.

Okay, after actually reading the essay (doh!), it seems as though you would place both relativity and B-theory of time among the mere abstractions of consciousness, and that spacetime is an illusion. I'm not sure this gets you anywhere.

I can well imagine space is an illusion (the Beckenstein/Hawking result for black-hole entropy strongly hints at it), but I don't think time can be gotten rid of as easily. There seems to me something far more fundamental about time, so strongly fundamental that I seriously doubt you can define consciousness without it, in a logically consistent manner.

I am well-familiar with Eastern thought and do ascribe to the singularity of consciousness. That ultimately there is only one I-Amness that gets dissociated into us as individuals. But awareness requires change. And as soon as there is change, there is time. Even if we can flash on and perhaps indefinitely extend a state that feels like ever-present abiding in NOW (if the testimony of mystics is to be believed), this requirement of being "aware" does not go away. If there is no time, there is no change and there is no awareness possible.

I'll make a strong claim here, which I doubt I can adequately defend at this point. But if time doesn't actually exist in some sense for Mind-at-Large, then Mind-at-Large is unconscious and un-aware, so the scientific materialists might as well be right.

Yes, this seems the crux of the question of the ineffable nature of reality, its realization, or so-called enlightenment, and how to explain it, and/or to teach it. Nothing new, of course, as the opening text of the Tao Te Ching speaks to this matter with the words: "The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao" (which then goes on for 81 chapters!). Indeed, many sages preach silence, and the contemplation of the emptiness of form, as the only way, precisely because language, being intrinsically subject/object based, is inextricably entangled with the imagining of a separate subjective entity experiencing an objective spacetime universe, which is the default modality of this human version of consciousness -- nothing but a dream with rules such as time, space, gravity, and so on, along with the rather profound limitation of death, the source of all suffering. Even in the sleeping dream state, and certain hallucinogenic states, this illusion persists, albeit with greatly relaxed rules and limitations. Thus escaping it would seem impossible, if not absurd, for what exactly would be escaping this illusory construct, other than an illusory separate self inherent within it, and what would be left to realize it? So yes, one can talk in circles about such a notion, and never resolve the inherent conundrum. Suffice to say, in essence, there is only Consciousness, ever now, and whatever it conceives, and good luck transcending it.

Very nice Bernardo. I'm looking forward to reading your new book. As I've mentioned in a few recent forum posts, I'm really enjoying your movement toward richer and richer, mythic, allegoric language, all the while keeping it integrated with your basic philosophic presentation.

The last few paragraphs of this blog post reminded me of a Paul Brunton exercise, starting with a preview of one's day, and recognizing that what one anticipates as "the future" will always be "now." Then reminding oneself at various points during the day, that what one is experiencing "now" is an experience in "mind" and will, in what we ordinarily take to be 'future" will be a memory in "mind", and then finally at the end of the day reviewing the day and recognizing that all one considers to be "past" is simply an experience in "mind," "now."

It's all really one thing but to the extent part of our consciousness is still "caught" in taking time and space to be an inherently existent, objective reality, this exercise can be quite powerful in reconditioning that part of our individual mind (the individual "whirlpool"!).

Sakshi, I will say what Bernardo cannot. Seek out a therapist if you can, if these "heart breaking illusions" are still bothering you. They can skillfully guide you to the source of those "illusions". In the meantime, you can look up something called the "3-2-1 Shadow Process" that Ken Wilber at Integral Institute advocates. That in itself may be enough, and it's at least a headstart on the kind of work that a therapist will do with you. A final possibility is the use of psychedelic drugs. As far as I can tell from a distance, about 80% of people get profoundly relieved from such obsessive thoughts while the other 20% get profoundly worse. It is because of that 20%, and the questionable legal status depending on where you are located, that I can't recommend that path. That is a choice you will have to make.

I've been attempting myself recently to talk in language free of time, space and objects. I didn't alight on the idea of the cognitive big bang, however, so much as the idea of dissociation. The One's dissociation is what causes the impression of space, time, and separate objects.

Of those three, the most important is the concept of oneself as a separate object: around that, the concepts of space and time coalesce. When an apparent other is psychologically close, that can be experienced as either a "mental" or a "physical" closeness. "Physical" parting from someone not particularly psychologically close is experienced as their retreating--becoming smaller, and they may eventually disappear. Their apparent or inferred size is able to be mathematically calculated, and the smaller they apparently become, the longer it will take them to return at any given "rate of travel". Time and space aren't two separate things so much as one thing thought of in two different ways, each implying the other. We may express this in units such as the light year or light second or light millisecond, which is a measure of apparent distance even though it has an inbuilt notion of time.

What does "closeness" signify? Possibly, the degree of knowledge of apparent other. The more we know an apparent other, the closer it may seem regardless of apparent distance. This can apply to objects we think of as inanimate--such as the sun. The more we have come to know it, the larger it has come to appear to us. At one time, it was experienced as a bright and warm light in the sky with a particular daily behaviour, but now we think of it as being very large and much further away than we formerly thought. We've always known and appreciated it as a life-supporter, but now we know (or at least have accepted theories) about what it is, and paradoxically that brings with it a sense of increased propinquity. When we know the sun completely in more detail, it will be that much closer still, even though we'll continue to think of it as being 93,000,000 miles away...ctd

But the sun needn't actually be *any* "distance" away, and nor need any apparent other. All things could be at the same locus, just being experienced as if they were at various distances according to how much we know of them. Apparently very small apparent objects may seem very close physically, e.g. the mosquito biting us, or gut bacteria, or our constituent elementary particles, but they all give the impression of a certain size and a certain distance from us according to how much we know of them: and that knowledge isn't necessarily just academic, but experiential.

All the universe, big as it seems, could in fact occupy no space at all; all the apparent distances could just be expressions of how much we know apparent others, and the way they communicate with us could be interpreted as what gives the impression of time. Apparently very distant objects we think of as sending us signals very fast: light speed in fact, and we take that speed, or some reasonable fraction of it, and may apply it to very small objects. "Fast" and "slow" are just concepts that express how "quickly" or "slowly" an apparent other can apparently communicate with us, where "communicate" is used in its widest sense of being able to register itself on our consciousness.

In a universe where there were no apparent other, there wouldn't be the apparent sensation of time or distance: but as soon as the One dissociates, such sensations necessarily follow.

I'm not sure if I'm getting this across, and I'm sure it's still a bit fuzzy and quite possibly inaccurate. However, we have a tendency to think in terms of causation, which is what lies behind all of our science. We are forever trying to discover the *mechanisms* behind phenomena, which rely on notions of space, time and objects; but there may be no such thing as causation, so much as appearances of what we think of as causation. The Source of all isn't chaotic; it possesses its own internal logic, a part of which we characterise as universal laws; it can't help but be as it is, and present itself to (apparent) "us" as we perceive it. There is no causation, just Source behaving as it has to and appearing to us as separate objects in apparent space and time, which we don't fully understand; hence our idea of "causation" and "mechanism" arise as a way of coming to know it better.

What you call the "cognitive Big Bang" I'm more inclined to call the "sensory Big Bang". That is, I consider time and space to be produced in the act of sense perception, as are color, sound, etc. Modern (post-Renaissance) philosophy of mind has distinguished between "primary quality" (spatial form, time, number, considered to be independent of sensing) and "secondary quality" (color, sound, smell, taste, touch, which are acknowledged as being produced in the act of sensing). So the "sensory Big Bang" claim is simply saying that space and time are secondary qualities, not primary.

A relevant historical note: in medieval philosophy, the same division of qualities was made (space, time, and number on the one hand, color, etc. on the other) but the terms used were 'common' and 'proper', rather than 'primary' and 'secondary'. A 'proper' quality was one that belonged to a single sense (color to vision, e.g.), while a 'common' property belonged to two or more.: e.g., we make spatial distinctions with vision, sound, and touch. It can be argued (see for example Samuel Avery's The Dimensional Structure of Consciousness) that it is this commonality of so-called primary qualities that makes us inclined to think they exist independently of perception.

Nit-picking here, but I dislike calling space and time "illusory", preferring to think of them (along with color, sound, etc.) as real (albeit contingent) creations. I realize that saying 'illusion' is shorthand for saying that "do not exist independently of perception", but I think the better term for this is "delusion". That is, we are deluded in believing that space and time exist independently of our awareness of them, but they really do exist as creations of our senses.

Hi SR. I rather think of sense perception, unpolluted by interpretation in thought, as the essence of the NOW. It is what thought does with sense perception that constitutes an imaginary past and future. The book elaborates more on this.

I have wondered when you would get to time Bernardo :). I have been curious about what your opinions on time would be. I think about it a lot. I am not at all surprised about your position because it makes so much sense. This position is very much consistent with my growing intuitions on time. The objective existence of a linear progression of time beginning at a big bang really makes no sense and just opens up more questions. It really does seem to suffer from all the shortcomings a limited perspective offers. Like the view of a fish in a fish bowl.

The metaphor I have used to make sense of it is to use a DVD of a movie. On the disk one can experience 2 hours of characters progressing through a story line yet the entire story exists right now; on the disk. I am not implying anything deterministic as it really doesn't make sense to talk about free will when there is only now. (Perhaps this is why I have never been interested in free will discussions. They seem like semantic exercises and I've always struggled to care.)

So we have the perspective of the actors in a storyline on a DVD trying to scientifically understand nature. All we understand in the end is the mind of the story teller.

So then, Bernardo! Evolution, Development, Growth, Decay, Entropy, Change, Before, After, New, Old must all be regarded as is an illusory consequence of an alter's limited perspective? If so, you seem to be implying that the perspectiveless Singularity, which embraces all alters, is unchanging and unchangeable...

Change, as well as the lack thereof, are time-bound ideas. "Unchangeable" is a qualifier that only has meaning within time. There is no change or changelessness outside time. "Evolution, Development, Growth, Decay, Entropy, Change, Before, After, New, Old" are all real and true as _symbols_ of realities and attributes outside time. I try to make sense of all this in the book. :)

I’m happy to see that you have decided to take on the “hard” problem of Metaphysical Speculations—How do you talk about it in a way that makes sense?I like your approach… “slay the demon of linguistic space-time.” You are a scientist and a philosopher, I am neither. However, I have been thinking about this sort of thing for a really long time, and I want to offer my perspective for your consideration.

Using the Reality/Illusion model for discussion purposes, I would say that this model makes sense if you define Illusion as, “not that it doesn’t exist, but is different than it appears to be.” Space and time are illusory in that they are not what they appear to be. (They appear to be ‘Reality.’ They are not). So I agree with you that we need a “Reality” based language to effectively discuss concepts involving space and time.

So, we’re off to a good start—discussion wise. Turning South, I would say that your choice of a linguistic space and time demon is shortsighted, partial…insufficient. That demon should be space, time and separation--a three headed dragon. Separation is every bit as illusory as space and time, and built in to our language as irrevocably (at least from my perspective).

Let me offer an example:

(With the two-headed dragon, space and time) We might talk in our Reality based language about space and time being illusions, and conclude that “form” is also an illusion. And from that conclude that the universe is not a structure—it is a process.

(With the three-headed dragon, space, time and separation) We might talk in our Reality based language about space, time, and separation being illusions, and conclude that “form” is also an illusion. And from that conclude that the universe is not a structure—it is a process. And from there realize it is all ONE process, and that you are (and I am) that ONE process. From there we might conclude “since we are the ONE, we know everything” because of that Noetic way of knowing, "knowing by being." And from there...

So, what I am saying, is that it is a completely different discussion whether the dragon is two-headed or three-headed.

Hi Bruce,Separation depends on space-time. Without space-time there is 'no room' for separation, no dimension along which to pull one thing apart from the other. So essentially I agree with what you're saying: the real demon here is that of separation. But I think it's slain the moment your slay space-time.Cheers, Bernardo.

Can't say I agree with the idea that modern science regards space and time as real. Yes, space-time is considered an active player in the world (and not simply a backdrop as in Newton), but the "time" of space-time is missing the quality of flow or passage or, for that matter, a privileged moment called "the present" or "now." In practice, of course, scientists rely on the concept of causation, which implies the existence of time in some sense but not a thoroughgoing fundamental sense.

The mathematical nature of theoretical physics gives it a bias against flowing time in favor of transcendent existence. From Newton's time-reversible equations of motion and gravity to the space-time manifold of general relativity to the triumph of the mathematical "wave function" over tangible or viewable systems of particles in quantum mechanics, the trend of modern science has been to recast nature in the image of the equation.

The temporality embedded in grammatical language has proven no obstacle to the acceptance of a timeless reality in theoretical physics. Perhaps this is because physics follows the tendency, also embedded in human language, to translate the temporal into the spatial, to think of past and future as left and right, for example, or to "see" time in a clock or calendar. We are primarily visual thinkers, which favors a "view" of time in spatial terms.

Determinism too implies timelessness in the sense that the ending is contained in the beginning, effacing any essential difference between past and future. Yet the past, unlike the future, ostensibly consists of moments that were once present. Only the future seems empty of content except what we project onto it. The apparent distinction between past presents and a current present poses an obstacle to a timeless worldview.

Thanks Alfonzo, your comments are hopeful and I understand where you're coming from. Yet, I think the vast majority of physicists would reject the idea that time is a mental illusion, as opposed to something outside and independent of mind. The fact that it is a predictable variable in equations, from their point of view, corroborates their position. Would many physicists interpret the relativistic bending of time as an illusory mental effect of a transpersonal mind? I doubt, but I hope you are more correct than I allow myself to imagine. :)

I am greatly enjoying your perspective Bernardo. I would add that there are scientists who are coming on board what space time is an illusion. Just came across this excellent one today...https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160421-the-evolutionary-argument-against-reality/

That about oblivion makes me consider that one of the implicit ideas in your essays is the idea of an afterlife, but then why not discuss the empirical evidence on apparitions, mediumship, rather than discussing materialism?

"I do believe there is a way to realize the illusory nature of time and space simply by reading a coherently written piece of text, without having to achieve what in the East has been called 'enlightenment.'"

Me too. It seems to me that Hermann Weyl comes as close as anyone. I think we sometimes underrate the ability of our intellect to grasp these things, which may be as counter-productive as overrating it.

Does this mean that Mind at Large is just a static and everything that will happen is already contained in it? That thought makes me sad because everything that I will do is already predetermined then. Or am I wrong?

Predetermination is a concept that depends on time. To say that something is "static" requires that there be time (otherwise, what sense is there in saying that something is "static" or "dynamic"?). And time is what I am denying. So no, I am not endorsing predetermination or a "static" reality. What I am saying is that _there is no time_, which doesn't deny meaning or purpose.

From the point of view of eternity there is no time. Indeed in eternity the question of time cannot arise. But, alas, our earthly point of view is of necessity based on the manifestation of eternity. This distorts the eternal. It becomes time. Recall Euclid's definition of the 'line': It is the shortest connection between two points. In the abstract, in the head, the two points have no spatial extension, nor has the line; the abstract approaches the absolute. But the moment we manifest this theorem with pencil and paper, the line becomes a ribbon, and the two points expand into circular areas. Ergo, from the point of view of the eternal there cannot be PRE-destination. PRE makes no sense outside time. But from the earthly point of view there is a PRE even though it is really just an aspect of NOW. Thus from the manifest point of view there is predestination. In eternity all is one, there is no division, PRE makes no sense. But in manifestation this becomes falsified, as the manifestation of Euclid’s theorem demonstrates.

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Bernardo Kastrup has a Ph.D. in computer engineering with specializations in artificial intelligence and reconfigurable computing. He has worked as a scientist in some of the world's foremost research laboratories, including the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Philips Research Laboratories (where the "Casimir Effect" of Quantum Field Theory was discovered). Bernardo has authored many academic papers and books on philosophy and science. His three most recent books are: More Than Allegory, Brief Peeks Beyond and Why Materialism Is Baloney.